Gaining

Thinking of starting to gain with heavy cream but its kinda pricey. You drink this every day right? How much money has it costed those of you who who drink it?

Thinking of starting to gain with heavy cream but its kinda pricey. You drink this every day right? How much money has it costed those of you who who drink it?

Heavy whipping cream has worked fantastically well for me. I'm I hard gainer, and the heavy whipping cream is the only thing that worked for me.

It took some experimentation to find a regimen that was optimal for me. Once I had optimized my gaining cycles, I was drinking about 295 mL of heavy whipping cream per sitting, and I was doing this 4 times per day.

Double cream has higher fat content than heavy whipping cream, so you may need to reduce the amount you drink. The body can only absorb about 1,000 calories of fat at a time, and it takes at least 2 1/2 hours to digest the fat. Having said that, I noticed that drinking heavy whipping cream more than 4 times per day resulted in gastrointestinal discomfort.

At my peak, I was gaining about 20 pounds over the course of a 4-week gaining cycle, with a 1-week break in between cycles.

I started gaining weight at 166 pounds and, when I last weighed myself, came in at 259 pounds. I had previously peaked at 295 pounds, but lost quite a bit during an extended break.

I suspect much of the weight loss was due to coming off prednisone. The prednisone caused me to gain a lot of visceral fat, and that's what shrank the most when I lost all that weight. Since resuming my weight gain, I've noticed that the fat is now subcutaneous, and my hard pot belly is gone.

I drink the heavy whipping cream straight, and just chase it with some juice.

Gaining has been a wonderful experience for me. I have taken a short break to let my body adjust to the weight, and am planning on starting another gaining cycle soon.

I'm going to reduce the frequency to 3 times per day. This will work better with my daily schedule. Since 4 times per day is optimal for me, I do expect to notice a drop in the rate of weight gain. Despite this, I think I'll still be able to gain about 15 pounds during my 28-day gaining cycle.

I wish you the best of luck. Happy gaining!

Yes, I drank it every day during gaining cycles. Last I checked, I was paying about $30 per week for the heavy whipping cream, so about $120 per month. Compared to just buying and eating a ton of food, the heavy whipping cream has been a bargain. It has been, by far, the cheapest way for me to gain weight.

Have you been drinking around a pint per day?



Is this generally what most people get? The results show up all over your body?



Any luck with busting through your plateau?

I recently gained 30lbs with heavy cream.

For the first 10lbs I had 1 pint of heavy cream every day and for the next 20lbs I had half a pint every day.

In my experience it's a great way to get extra calories in without needing a massive appetite, drink 1 cup and you instantly added 700+ calories to your day. It's also kind of hot to drink something so fattening.

But there is something EVERYONE here should know.

There is a lot of misinformation on this forum where people will claim that drinking heavy cream will increase subcutaneous fat and make you softer. This is false. I did not experience that effect at all and I would take a grain of salt when someone claims it worked for them (usually their pictures show otherwise). I even managed to avoid simple carbs and foods with linoleic acid, ate avocados and superfoods daily and maintained a cardio and resistance training practice throughout my gains.

Some of this confusion came from people misunderstanding and putting too much faith in articles that the user becomingoverweight has cited, which suggest there may be a possibility of the side effect but by no means provides any concrete proof. I do really respect his hard work researching ways to change fat distribution though and I hope he keeps looking into it.

There is quite a bit of nuance here. I don't think the claim it is entirely false, but I do think that its effect is generally overstated. There are a number of confounding factors going on here.

Heavy Cream does not eliminate anywhere near all visceral fat gains. I'm quite skeptical that a 100% subcutaneous gain from HC alone would be physically possible.

Also frequently unaccounted for is the difference in gaining patterns between men and women. Men naturally are going to be fighting against the visceral fat every step of the way during the gaining phase. There is some evidence dairy fat, coupled with light exercise is a way to reduce these visceral gains.

A softer second gain after losing weight seems reasonable based on my readings. After losing weight, most of the extra, newly created subcutaneous fat cells are still hanging around, just with a reduced lipid load per cell. Regaining would likely increase the fat storage in those subcutaneous fat cells with higher priority than the first time around, and would potentially cause them to increase in number as well depending on the magnitude of the gain. I believe the research on that goes way back to the Vermont prison experiments in the 1970s.

But a gain of sufficient magnitude is always going to have some visceral fat associated with it, particularly for men. It is unavoidable, and I think that is reality. If you want to reduce the visceral gain, then the only solution I can see would be to gain with some excess, then diet/exercise your way off a few pounds. Visceral fat will go first, leaving a greater proportion of subcutaneous left behind.

I would love to see a controlled research study on the gaining via HC topic, since it is undeniably effective at fattening in general, but I think the subcutaneous/visceral effect is not nearly as strong as we in the community would hope. For now, all you can do is try it for yourself, then evaluate whether your body ends up where you want.

I think becomingoverweight has put a great deal of time and effort scouring articles trying to piece together the connection between subcutaneous fat and dairy, and this is not an attack on that noble effort at all. The truth is though, no one has directly studied the connection here, so it is very hard to know what the strength of the subcutaneous gaining effect for any particular individual might be.

Heavy cream isn't a perfect strategy, but it is the best one we've got for right now.

Absolutely agree with everything you've said. After trying heavy cream for myself I've pivoted my strategy to over-gaining beyond my desired point and then losing the excess weight. I still make heavy cream (and avocados) a regular part of my diet though and I would certainly increase heavy cream usage if intend to gain significant weight.

TL;DR:
1. We can generally control dairy intake, but not a lot of other confounding factors related to visceral vs. subcutaneous proportion
2. Science > annecdotes
3. For health, four behaviors matter more than subcutaneous vs. visceral.



Good points here. While it’s probably true that some users overstate the effect, I think the bigger factor in the enthusiasm for heavy cream is that it’s a factor we have some control over.

The major confounding factors that affect subcutaneous vs. visceral fat gain—genetics, hormones, etc.—we don’t have much control over.

On the other hand, most people have greater control over our diets (but not total control—geography, SES, allergies, etc. also affect diet). I can’t (presently) reprogram my genes, but I can drink heavy cream if I want.

I think that control factor is key in the enthusiasm for heavy cream, for those who want to gain subcutaneous fat.



I interpret the situation a little differently. Anecdotal evidence isn’t really scientific data. So while it’s fun to see what possibilities the literature hints at and to compare our anecdotal experiences to it, forum conversations aren’t science. No individual’s anecdotal experience can, by itself, confirm or disconfirm the conclusions of these studies. We can identify where our experiences align or differ from the lit (which may inspire new lines of investigation), but just because any of us do or do not experience what the lit suggests doesn’t mean the conclusions are right or wrong.

—————

Related to subcutaneous fat gain:

Some folks are interested in aesthetically. Others are interested in it because subcutaneous storage seems to be “healthier” than visceral fat gain.

For those interested in the health aspects, subcutaneous vs. visceral fat seems to be less important than behavioral factors that can be done at any weight.

Hannah Talks Bodies on TikTok is great at discussing and contextualizing epidemiological and social science information related to weight. For example, she addressed a study that looked at the relationship between BMI categories, four “healthy habits”, and mortality. Turns out, if people of any BMI conduct these four behaviors (not smoking, not exceeding moderate alcohol consumption, eating 5 servings of fruits and veggies per day, and exercising 12 times per month), the risk of mortality between BMI categories is negligible.

BMI is a garbage measurement, but it’s useful in this case—the study indicates that regardless of the reason that a person has a high BMI (subcutaneous fat, visceral fat, muscle, anything), four behaviors matter much more than BMI/weight.

For the study, www.jabfm.org/content/jabfp/25/1/9.full.pdf

For Hannah Talks Bodies, www.jabfm.org/content/jabfp/25/1/9.full.pdf

started drinking a minimum of 600ml of double cream with milk everyday on the 9th july. ill only weigh myself on the 9th august